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  5. JavaScript vs Python vs Swift

JavaScript vs Python vs Swift

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Python
Python
Stacks262.8K
Followers205.4K
Votes6.9K
GitHub Stars69.7K
Forks33.3K
Swift
Swift
Stacks21.9K
Followers13.6K
Votes1.3K
JavaScript
JavaScript
Stacks392.2K
Followers284.0K
Votes8.1K

JavaScript vs Python vs Swift: What are the differences?

Key Differences between JavaScript, Python, and Swift

JavaScript, Python, and Swift are three popular programming languages used for web development, data analysis, and mobile app development, respectively. While they all share some similarities, there are several key differences that set them apart. Let's examine these differences in detail:

  1. Syntax and Structure:

    • JavaScript has C-style syntax with curly braces and semicolons, while Python uses indentation and whitespace for code blocks and Swift has a syntax influenced by Objective-C.
    • JavaScript and Python are both dynamically typed languages, meaning variable types are determined at runtime. In contrast, Swift is a statically typed language that requires explicit declaration of variable types.
  2. Application Domain:

    • JavaScript is primarily used for front-end web development and adding interactivity to websites.
    • Python is a versatile language that finds applications in web development, scientific computing, data analysis, artificial intelligence, and many other domains.
    • Swift, developed by Apple, is specifically designed for iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS app development.
  3. Usage and Execution:

    • JavaScript is executed on the client-side in a web browser.
    • Python code is typically executed on the server-side in web applications, but it can also be used for scripting and desktop applications.
    • Swift code is compiled into machine code and executed natively on Apple devices.
  4. Libraries and Frameworks:

    • JavaScript has a vast ecosystem of libraries and frameworks like React, Angular, and Node.js that facilitate front-end and back-end development.
    • Python has a rich collection of libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, and Django, which make it powerful for scientific computing, data manipulation, and web development.
    • Swift, being primarily used for iOS app development, has its own set of frameworks like UIKit and SwiftUI.
  5. Concurrency and Parallelism:

    • JavaScript is single-threaded, meaning it can only execute one task at a time, but it supports asynchronous programming with features like callbacks and promises.
    • Python is also primarily single-threaded, but it provides features like threads and coroutines for concurrent programming.
    • Swift supports both concurrent and parallel programming with features like Grand Central Dispatch and Swift concurrency to take advantage of modern multi-core processors.
  6. Community and Popularity:

    • JavaScript, being the language of the web, has a massive community and is highly popular among developers.
    • Python has gained significant popularity in recent years due to its versatility and ease of use. It has a large and active community.
    • Swift, although relatively young compared to JavaScript and Python, is gaining popularity rapidly, especially within the iOS development community.

In summary, JavaScript is mainly used for web front-end development, Python is versatile and widely used, and Swift is specialized for iOS app development. They differ in syntax, application domain, execution environment, concurrency support, available libraries, and community popularity.

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Advice on Python, Swift, JavaScript

Thomas
Thomas

Talent Co-Ordinator at Tessian

Mar 11, 2020

Decided

In December we successfully flipped around half a billion monthly API requests from our Ruby on Rails application to some new Python 3 applications. Our Head of Engineering has written a great article as to why we decided to transition from Ruby on Rails to Python 3! Read more about it in the link below.

263k views263k
Comments
Avy
Avy

Apr 8, 2020

Needs adviceonReact NativeReact NativePythonPythonFlutterFlutter

I've been juggling with an app idea and am clueless about how to build it.

A little about the app:

  • Social network type app ,
  • Users can create different directories, in those directories post images and/or text that'll be shared on a public dashboard .

Directory creation is the main point of this app. Besides there'll be rooms(groups),chatting system, search operations similar to instagram,push notifications

I have two options:

  1. @{React Native}|tool:2699|, @{Python}|tool:993|, AWS stack or
  2. @{Flutter}|tool:7180|, @{Go}|tool:1005| ( I don't know what stack or tools to use)
722k views722k
Comments
Ítalo
Ítalo

VP Platform Engineering at Lykon

Feb 19, 2020

Decided

We decided to use python to write our ETLs and import them into metabase via a lambda. Before python we tried using Go, but overall go was way more verbose than Python when writing the ETLs. Go also had some issues managing memory when using the S3 upload manager library. This was a deal breaker for us that made us switch to Python.

In the end the solution was much cleaner and maintainable.

261k views261k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Python
Python
Swift
Swift
JavaScript
JavaScript

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
69.7K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
33.3K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
262.8K
Stacks
21.9K
Stacks
392.2K
Followers
205.4K
Followers
13.6K
Followers
284.0K
Votes
6.9K
Votes
1.3K
Votes
8.1K
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 1186
    Great libraries
  • 966
    Readable code
  • 848
    Beautiful code
  • 789
    Rapid development
  • 692
    Large community
Cons
  • 53
    Still divided between python 2 and python 3
  • 28
    Performance impact
  • 26
    Poor syntax for anonymous functions
  • 22
    GIL
  • 20
    Package management is a mess
Pros
  • 259
    Ios
  • 180
    Elegant
  • 126
    Not Objective-C
  • 107
    Backed by apple
  • 93
    Type inference
Cons
  • 6
    Must own a mac
  • 2
    Memory leaks are not uncommon
  • 1
    Is a lot more effort than lua to make simple functions
  • 1
    Complicated process for exporting modules
  • 1
    Very irritatingly picky about things that’s
Pros
  • 1670
    Can be used on frontend/backend
  • 1497
    It's everywhere
  • 1163
    Lots of great frameworks
  • 899
    Fast
  • 746
    Light weight
Cons
  • 24
    A constant moving target, too much churn
  • 20
    Horribly inconsistent
  • 16
    Javascript is the New PHP
  • 9
    No ability to monitor memory utilitization
  • 8
    Shows Zero output in case of ANY error
Integrations
Django
Django
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Python, Swift, JavaScript?

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Rust

Rust

Rust is a systems programming language that combines strong compile-time correctness guarantees with fast performance. It improves upon the ideas of other systems languages like C++ by providing guaranteed memory safety (no crashes, no data races) and complete control over the lifecycle of memory.

Clojure

Clojure

Clojure is designed to be a general-purpose language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming. Clojure is a compiled language - it compiles directly to JVM bytecode, yet remains completely dynamic. Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system.

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